GREEN RIVER - Southwest Wyoming has long been a bastion for blue-collar hunters and sportsmen.

Union workers labor in Sweetwater County's trona mines and coal mines, but in their spare time, they enjoy Wyoming's abundant wildlife, clean air and open spaces with a passion.

They've also discovered in recent weeks that they share common concerns with conservationists about the level and pace of oil, gas and coalbed methane development in southwest Wyoming.

In an unusual "Blue-Green Alliance," about 30 people from the labor and conservation communities met in Rock Springs June 17-18 to discuss concerns about the impacts from oil and gas development on wildlife and recreational resources.

The alliance includes the United Steel Workers of America, the Labor Institute, the Public Health Institute, the Friends of the Red Desert and the Powder River Basin Resource Council.

"I was amazed when we got there … when we walked into the room, we thought there was going to be some chips on some shoulders somewhere and there wasn't at all," Marian Doane with the Friends of the Red Desert said about the two-day meetings.

"I definitely think there is promise in this (alliance)," Doane said in a phone interview.

"One of the biggest things I heard is people wanted to keep their grandkids here and I think we all feel that way in Wyoming," she said. "We know it's a beautiful place to live and we love the places we get to interact in … and it's worthy of protection."

Monte Morlock, president of the USWA Local 13214, said labor leaders and the conservation community share many of the same concerns regarding Wyoming's future.

"We are concerned about the potential impact of gas and oil drilling in southwest Wyoming," he said in a statement. "We hope that this group can educate the public about that impact and what it will mean to us as hunters, anglers and citizens."

Alliance members agreed at the meeting that some Wyoming landscapes targeted by the oil, gas and coalbed methane industries should be off-limits to further energy development.

Those off-limit areas include prime hunting and recreational areas on public lands in the Jack Morrow Hills and Adobe Town areas of the Red Desert basin. The Bureau of Land Management will be releasing the final land management plan for the Jack Morrow Hills for public comment later this summer.

Smart growth

In a general statement of agreement released Tuesday, the group called for smart growth for Wyoming and said the boom and bust cycles of the energy industry don't support, or promote, job stability.

Members said the boom/bust cycles of the oil and gas industry have a detrimental impact on communities, on the environment and on local workers.

The statement said corporations have capitalized on fear of job loss to drive a wedge between conservationists and blue-collar workers on issues of mutual concern.

And they called on the energy industry to use the best available technology, such as directional drilling, to avoid adverse impacts to resources.

But Dru Bower, vice president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, disputed those assertions and said Wyoming's oil and gas industry not only provides stability for job growth, it also provides the state with a stable revenue source that helped fund the state's approximately $1.2 billion budget surplus.

Bower said the boom-and-bust cycle in western Wyoming towns such as Pinedale - where thousands of natural gas wells are being drilled, or are on the drawing board, in the Jonah and Anticline fields - is, in part, a result of seasonal drilling restrictions imposed by federal agencies.

The BLM restricts drilling from Nov. 15 until April 30 on the 197,000-acre Pinedale Anticline - which stretches from just northwest of Pinedale for about 30 miles to the southeast - to protect big game winter range. Companies must ask the BLM for extensions to drill or perform other activities in the area during that period.

"In Pinedale, they have a tremendous resource, but because of the significant wildlife stipulations we have on our leases and our development projects … our seasonal window for development is only about three months out of the year," Bower said.

"So we have to gear up to drill a significant amount those three months and then we're back down the other nine months and that has an impact on the community," she said.

"If we were able … to get exceptions to those stipulations (for directional drilling), it would reduce the impacts on the community and stabilize development over the long-term," Bower said.

"For two years of interruption to those seasonal restrictions, you (could) minimize the imprint and reduce the impacts," she said. "But the environmental groups and the conservation groups continue to protest and appeal any decision the BLM may make in granting an exception … and because they're not granting exceptions, that is having a (seasonal) impact on the community."

Bower said restricting the development of "the mineral resources … which allow us the revenue to reinvest back into the state and local communities … would only cut off our nose to spite our face."

Doane said similar, future meetings with the two groups are planned for later this summer in Rock Springs. Powder River Basin Resource Council officials will also be meeting with union members and conservationists in the Sheridan area, she said.